I Don't Have A Creative Title For This Blog Post

these next couple weeks, back to back, I'm diving head-first into two different mission trips at two different places with two entirely different groups of people doing two totally different things and I don't feel incredibly connected to either groups of people on either mission trip and I don't exactly look forward to the unexpected and I'm not exactly clear about a lot of what will happen. I feel socially inept and not cool enough, not sure what my role is as leader? student? teenager? adult? I doubt God's ability to use me, I don't feel sure and on steady ground when it comes to handling power tools or organizing groups of people or engaging with littler kids or conversing in small talk when getting to know new people or figuring out where to go and when and what to do there. I don't necessarily enjoy the unknown and yet I'm wanting to go and experience all of the goodness of these things - risking the possible bursting of my comfortable bubble and entering into what seems like all chaos.  

what crazy person signed me up for this anyways...?

I have a hard time holding on to the utter reality that God works in chaos. My mind work in a way (a lot of the time) that is "well if I just get my life all calm, cool, and collected, then God can work immensely." And yeah, He works when everything feels calm cool and collected, too, but there's something crazy to say in the midst of this messy life and disorganization that God is the straight, sure, strong line supporting underneath and threading through the other wavy scribbles.

My constant back-and-forth musing is "to risk or not to risk"? "to enter in or not enter in"? After all this back-and-forth, and the missing of opportunities, experiencing God work through the unknown and still choosing to hide in my hole - it all essentially comes to: "to be or not to be"? (Didn't mean to go all Shakespeare on you.)

I feel inept. incompetent. struggling with all the unknown experiences, not knowing what will happen within them, weighing all my thoughts and feelings on these fears. But I want to be. ever-present in each moment, not looking inward towards myself kind of be-ing. taking in all of my surroundings and the people I am with and the work I am doing and the gracious life I've been given kind of be-ing. Not the monotonous-going-through-the-motions-doing-just-a-little-less-than-I-could-be, but the joyous-seeking-out-the-people-and-the-conversations-going-out-of-my-comfort-zone-in-surrender kind of be-ing.

and can I say that just even thinking about that kind of be-ing freaks me out. it reminds me of words from C.S Lewis: "We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."

"But God..." (x1000000000)

over and over in my head. 

it is not yourself, caitlyn. you can't do it alone and you can't do it on your own strength. 

I go into these next two weeks with a fear that I won't be enough. good enough, capable enough, strong enough, energetic enough, wise enough, cheerful enough, tough enough, loving enough. 

I make things so complex in my head and what does God say, that He is enough and that we are enough. in all our messy heads and hearts, chaotic lifestyles, we're enough. 

it's the choosing to enter into the unknown messy chaos of life that makes us hesitate. but I'll go rejoicing.

here's to God's inexplicable work and expanding glory in Philly and Easton.